A leading academic and lawyer says Australia has shown contempt for the United Nations by its treatment of vulnerable refugees and does not deserve a place on the Security Council.

By the end of the week a vote in the UN General Assembly will decide whether Australia's $U25 million campaign for a seat on the Security Council has been successful.

However, Prof Ben Saul, co-director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at Sydney Law School, claims Australia is not only breaking international law by keeping genuine refugees locked up indefinitely, but it is flouting a guarantee made to the UN to keep them safe.

He was referring to the case of Premakumar, 20, a brain-damaged torture survivor from Sri Lanka who was allegedly assaulted by guards inside Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre.

Dr Neil Phillips, a community psychiatrist with 41 years' experience, described Premakumar's treatment as the worst he has ever seen.

Premakumar is among 38 Tamil refugees whose indefinite incarceration has been challenged by Professor Saul.

He lodged a formal complaint with the UN's Human Rights Committee in August 2011, but the body is still waiting on a response from Australia.

More concerns

Meanwhile, the new president of Australia's Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, has expressed deep concerns about offshore processing, which Australia restarted last month on Nauru.

Prof Triggs wants to travel to inspect offshore processing centres in Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea to see what awaits asylum seekers there.

"Basically there is an obligation to ensure asylum seekers are treated humanely and that they have a speedy process for determining their refugee status and that they have a safe environment," she told Radio Australia's Pacific Beat program.

"And the concerns that we have are that the environment may not be safe, there may be a risk of return to the countries from which they have fled and we're also concerned about whether the legal system will provide an appropriate and speedy assessment of their claims to refugee status."